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Led Zeppelin's catalogue is so well known, so thoroughly engrained in the cultural consciousness that it's difficult to envisage alternate recordings.

Yet a new re-issue project aims to highlight these differences, these distinct entities. The band's first three albums will be re-issued on June 3rd, with the remaining members of Led Zeppelin helping to plough through the vaults.

The extended version of 'Led Zeppelin II' features an alternate recording of 'Whole Lotta Love'. Perhaps the definitive hard rock cut, it continues to carry an almighty punch.

Unveiled last week in Paris following a Q&A with Jimmy Page, this recording is largely absent of the effects and overdubs which defined the standard version's hypnotic middle section.

Jimmy Page: "This version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is the mix down from the night that we recorded it, so it doesn’t have any of the overdubs that everyone will be familiar with, because when they hear this they’ll think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the original’ and all of a sudden they’ll go ‘No, it’s not.’"

Robert Plant added: "You can see how songs grow. There must have been five or six other takes of that, which are not present. So the shaping of these things is very interesting and you can hear with this particular version that we haven’t quite reached the point yet, and that it’s very, very close."

A video accompanying the alternate version of 'Whole Lotta Love' has been released, featuring a number of live recordings - both famed and rare - of the track.

Check it out now.

Led Zeppelin are set to re-issue their first three albums on June 3rd.